Marketing and post-digital distribution

DJ and Electronic Music Production

Project management

Simon Adair

marketing and post-digital distribution

marketing is an important part of the creative industries infrastructure. Love it or hate it, marketing is essential for giving a product 'face value'. However marketing does carry the stigma of being...marketing. Most find advertising irritating and irresponsible and pushing a product hard can detract from its true value, if it has value.

So how do creative artist working in the music industry get around the general immoral, ham-fisted approach of marketing and make an impression?

Examples and how they work.

• Aphex Twin and his tank driving capabilities
• letting fans decide how much an album should cost
• artistic tie-ins
• gigs
• secret gigs and band press signings
• gimmicks (Aphex Twin's Tank's and Blimps)

The idea in a post-ironic industry is to create an image that is hard to forget yet refrains from traditional saturation and peer pressure techniques used by big companies and marketing firms.

People are generally moving away from 'pushiness' in a product and naturally go towards a more 'quirky' and egalitarian model.

This is true of many artists working within the creative industries but the rules of marketing still apply regardless of how 'quirky' and 'indie'.

An artist still has to advertise gigs, distribute Demo's either through CD's (if you live in the 90's) or using a website/music networking site such as Sound-cloud, Lastfm etc.

The WikiHow- market Yourself as an Artist makes out marketing for an indie musician/producer seem simple and lists everything relevant;

1. write a Bio of yourself
2. make stylish and available pics of yourself
3. create business cards
4. create a website
5. create a youtube account
6. post your events on social networks
7. join artist groups
8. perform lots of gigs and open mic's

This is a good list but seems to avoid high lighting some very important points that I will add and explain myself.

1. Budget. A 'starving' artist may be on a tight budget so business cards and web domains may be out of the question.
2. The problem with joining artist groups or social networking is that your creative output may still get ignored or people simply wont know its there if they can't find your alias
3. You need an Alias more than you need 'sexy' and stylish pics of yourself. And taking 'cool' selfies of yourself for self promotion may attract the wrong crowd or send the wrong message. “Keep it real”.
4. Be Very Very Lucky. Cannot stress this enough because in this kind of society sometimes you just need luck.

Other than those issues the other methods of self marketing as an artist are solid and all artists have to create an online 'digital footprint' through Social networking, gigging and open mic.

An alias(s) is also useful and helps music fans identify you online better. The best alias would be something unique, easy to Google search and memorable.

Although Distribution is considered a physical act of moving promotional goods such as CD's and merchandise, most modern marketing for a small 'up and comer' is done purely digitally. Most distribution is 'metaphysical' in nature and the music industry is generally shifting in that direction-In 2011 there were 3.6bn paid music downloads, up 17% on 2010. Music distribution is relatively well-established online, compared to other entertainment industries, and there are two distinct ways that music is marketed and distributed online.-econsultancy.com.

Like most music content users I'm likely to listen to some of a new artists tracks for free before buying any tracks or albums by that artist. I am able to do this because the market has shifted towards a digital download model similar to the gaming industry i.e.-Steam Client.

So most distribution of music through sales and 'access' to music content is now done through sites such as; iTunes and Spotify.-As the younger generations (who currently use free music access services such as Spotify, YouTube and Pandora) begin to acquire spending power, they are likely to heavily influence the development of paid access-based and subscription services.-econsultancy.com

Although in my personal opinion it may be due to budget. Although buying and owning something physical is still seen as 'better', why would your average 'facebook generation' kid buy a CD for £15 when she has already listened to the album on Band Camp?

Referencing/Reading material:

http://www.wikihow.com/Market-Yourself-As-an-Artist

https://econsultancy.com/blog/10275-the-future-of-digital-music-distribution-and-online-music-marketing/